Our dynamic Dance Exchange Residency is designed to build bridges between professional dance artists and students through embodied learning, artistic exchange, and community engagement. This residency brings our Dance Exchange model into schools and communities through three phases including masterclasses, professional exposure, and collaborative performance creation.

The Residency offers a rich ecosystem of learning, experience, and artistry. It provides students with multiple entry points into dance—through technique, observation, creation, and performance—and cultivates a sense of belonging in the artistic process.

Ballaro Dance welcomes the opportunity to bring this program to your community to collaborate in shaping a meaningful, movement-based experience.

Residency Components

1. MASTERCLASS EXPERIENCE

Students will participate in a series of masterclasses designed to build foundational skills, create confidence, and personal voice through movement.

Modern Dance Technique

Modern MOVES is high-energy and thought-provoking. Inspired by early American modern dance fundamentals, the class explores: spatial tension and resistance, using body weight as power to find suspension, being both on and off balance, body part articulation to locomote. Through use of breath and spatial awareness, dancers connect from the inside out, affecting and being affected by space. Using biomechanics, the class is attentive to joint angles and bony landmarks to find efficiency of movement leading to injury-free, expressive, and athletic performance. Analyzing muscular actions, joint motion, and skeletal assessment aids in observation, class discussion, and building self-awareness. Working at various speeds and direction facings provides micro-challenges that test the core, promote stability, and challenge the mind. The class incorporates a “practice as performance” approach: technical exercises both strengthen the body and invite expression and attention. Students enter into a “classroom as lab” environment exploring concepts facilitated by the teacher, while self-guided, or through collaborative investigation; peer-to-peer feedback is a cornerstone. 

Ballaro Repertory

Dive into the heart of Ballaro Dance’s signature style—grounded, gestural, and emotionally resonant. This class introduces students to selections from Company repertory focusing on dynamic phrasing, spatial awareness, musicality, and being human. Students will embody excerpts from past works and learn how storytelling, gesture, and ensemble work intersect in professional choreography. 

• Company Repertory (LINK)

• Community Repertory (LINK)

Creative Choreography & Composition

Participants explore the building blocks of choreography through improvisation prompts, guided tasks, and collaborative play. Emphasis is placed on personal expression, decision-making, and translating ideas into movement. This class supports students in creating original material, individually and in groups, generating the culminating performance piece.

This workshop centers parts of identity, both the visible and hidden or invisible; it invites uniqueness into focus through self-investigation. Encountering vulnerability through community sharing, participants reflect, brainstorm, respond, create, design, and share with others in a safe, supportive environment. By centering the voices of a community, each person can feel valued, appreciated, and acknowledged.

The curriculum is tailored for the specific age group and level of participating students, ensuring inclusive and meaningful engagement.

2.  PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Students will attend a field trip to a Ballaro Dance rehearsal or creative process session to witness and participate in the making of professional work. This behind-the-scenes exposure:

• Deepens understanding of dance as a professional career path;

• Connects classroom learning to real-world creative practice;

• Provides mentoring moments through informal dialogue and direct interaction with Company members.

This “professional shadowing” element invites students into the fold of a working Company, helping demystify the field and inspire future pursuits. This experiential session can include: technique class with the Company, small group community conversations, opportunity for choreographic sharings and feedback, and collaborative art making.  

3. CULMINATING EXPERIENCE

The residency culminates in a performance-based experience, with options based on the school/community’s needs and resources:

• In-School Performance Piece: Students co-create a site-specific or stage performance (with or without Ballaro Dance artists), to be performed at the school for peers and community.

• Ballaro Dance in Concert: Selected students join Ballaro Dance in a professional concert, performing a shared work that interweaves student contributions and company repertory, embodying the values of intergenerational artistic exchange.

Both options emphasize storytelling, collaboration, and community presence.